Overlord

J.J. Abrams’ degenerate new war film combines horror with exploitation to deadening effect.

Running foul: Mathilde Ollivier

Just as the
world celebrates the centenary of the Armistice of 1918, along comes a film to
remind us of the horrors of war. Of course, ‘Overlord’ was the codename for the
Battle of Normandy, so this aberration is set during the Second World War, specifically the day before D-Day. The film has
barely started when we are treated to the sight of American soldiers being
shredded by anti-aircraft fire, a number of American planes turned into fireballs
and the near-drowning of one paratrooper. But that’s just for starters. Once
behind enemy lines, the five survivors of the German guns – a largely unsavoury
bunch of loud-mouthed Yanks – are subjected to a brutal miscellany of atrocities.
Here, there be no good Germans, just strutting evil-doers who rape the local
women and use children for target practice. But there are even worse
revelations to come. The Germans have been conducting a series of scientific
experiments on the French villagers and in the process have created something
truly abominable…

It’s been a
good year for horror films and then along comes this. Watching it just reinforces
the intelligence of John Krasinski’s truly frightening A Quiet Place, which used the power of silence to excavate our
worst fears. Here, Overlord charges
in the opposite direction, employing noise to try and subjugate its audience.
So every motion is underlined by an orchestral panic attack and every punch
accentuated by a sonic boom. The effect quickly leads to tedium, while the pornographic
violence is beyond the Pythonesque. Even for diehard fans of horror, the
spectacle must seem ludicrous.

On top of
all this, the film is populated by nincompoops. Our nominal hero, Private Boyce
(Jovan Adepo) hides in a darkened cellar behind the glare of his flashlight
(which the Nazis pretend not to notice), while his colleagues constantly state
the bleeding obvious. As the first flak attack rattles the paratroopers’
fuselage, one grunt comments, “we must be close.” And the Germans are no
brighter. With their ammunition at a premium, they empty several rounds of their
machine guns to fell a solitary American. What’s surprising about all this is
that Overlord is produced by J.J.
Abrams, the canny mastermind behind the reboots of Star Trek and Star Wars. If
there’s one single redeeming feature of the film, it’s the performance of the
Oxfordshire-born Adepo, who first made his mark in Denzel Washington’s Fences. He not only makes a convincing
fist of an American soldier, but under impossible odds retains a semblance of
human dignity. This is no mean feat, as his co-stars – notably Wyatt Russell
(son of Kurt) and the Danish actor Pilou Asbæk – relentlessly devour the
scenery.